Friday, October 19, 2012

Khan is an expert BECAUSE he knows nothing about learning theory.

The idea of TED is that you’re smart enough to get it in 10 minutes or less, and the story that TED-ites love (b/c it supports that narrative) is the story of someone outside the “industry” or research area coming in from another area and declaring at a glance what everyone has missed.

So we get economists talking about global warming, game designers talking about learning, techies talking about political gridlock, and choreographers talking about physics. It’s so simple, they tell us.

Ah, say the TED-sters — us outsiders to the system, we can all see what the insiders can’t! Salman Khan is an expert because he knows nothing about learning theory. Lomborg is worth listening to because he doesn’t know about climate science. And I’m probably an expert too!